Madison Pierce and Ched Spellman on Anonymous Authors and Audiences in the New Testament

Speaker 1 Welcome to this episode of church grammar on. Today's episode, I talked with Chad Spellman and Madison Pierce about a conference. They recently presented that on pseudepigrapha and anonymity in the New Testament. So thinking about authorship in the New Testament, who are the audience's? How can we tell, who the authors are, who the audience is, are and what the purpose is of many of the New Testament books. And so we talked about that today, as well as some bigger questions about the importance of the cannon, in the importance of how the church received the biblical book. X in the early church. As always were brought to you by the Christian Standard Bible, go to CS Bible.com to find out more about that, English Bible translation and now my conversation with Chad Spellman and Madison Pierce. But first, no, big deal. Alright, Chad Spellman medicine. Pierce fan, favorites. Favorites of mine. Glad you guys are on the podcast today. Hello. Hey. Thanks Brandon. There's loads of worst. That was the least energetic control of the partners. All right, so you guys At the, what is it? The international library for biblical research. I think that's what it was called. You guys, were invited out there for the linear at the linear theological library. And according to Facebook, it was called the international library for biblical research. So that's, that's what I that's what I saw. So you guys were there to talk about pseudepigrapha and anonymity which every time I hear the word anonymity, I think about Finding Nemo whenever he asks him the teacher asked him where he lives and he says and then anonymity and in limine. Remember that I thought it's yeah. So are in Intro is bad but your segue to the conference, that's great. It's all going well top dog here, okay? Yeah you think you think when you bring on two people that you have probably better Rapport war with in real life than anybody on Earth. And this is what I get out of the tubules is no record whatsoever. So okay, what I'm going to do is we're going to kick it off. This is of all the podcast episodes, I've done in like three years on Church grammar, I think pseudepigrapha. And anonymity is probably on the LIE, the most out of my depth. So what I'm gonna let you guys do is primarily kind Run the conversation talk about what the conference was. And then kind of talked about your two papers and interact with each other, because I think it's a really fascinating topic. I just don't know enough about it, to, to lead the conversation, as much as I'd like. So, Chad, maybe you could just give a little bit of an overview of what the, what the conference was about, what were some of the big ideas that were being talked about. And then Madison Madison, you got to talk about authorship if Hebrews, which is just like the biggest shiny glittery, softball, ever thrown to me in the history of mankind, that we get that we get to ask you about authorship of Hebrew. So, so I'll let you talk about that, and I'll let you guys interact. So, Chad, once you kick it off, just by talking a little bit about the conference and what kind of the Big Ideas were and stuff like that? Okay sure. Yeah, it was at the linear theological library in Houston which is a just kind of an oasis of scholarship and style in the middle of the Houston suburbs. So it's kind of an interesting beautiful location. And then the conference was Relatively small conference with 30 or 30, or 40 participants, and the theme of the conference was, does it matter who wrote the New Testament? And so working through issues of pseudonymity, anonymity, and then pivoting towards the, the underlying subplot of the conference was pastoral implications of some of these discussions in the academy. And so there were two major parts of what people were talking about is one some of the debates about pseudepigrapha, fee and authenticity, which bleeded blood into discussions of authorship, historical reconstruction. The history of early Christianity, in some ways, a lot of the conference was designed to sidestep some of the messiness of the debates and focus on pastoral implications but One of the themes of the conference was that these a lot of these questions are interlaced and interlocked. So, working through the question of authorship is fraught with all kinds of baggage, but also all kinds of connotations so people from a variety of perspectives were there. So we had Old Testament, professors, New Testament professors. People who had you have published mountains of work on the backgrounds of the Gospel of John like Paul Anderson or the biblical Canon likely Martin MacDonald and then doing work in early Christianity, like Simon gather, coal, and Brilliant Hebrew Scholars like Madison Pierce. And then, there was, you know, some people that just kind of stress straggled in after the conference already started. Like myself, but they're in one sense. There was a lot of overlap in the conference lot of some of the paper titles. At first, I thought was going to be like seven or eight of us. Giving the same exact paper. However, I thought it was interesting because of the hermeneutical and historical issues that are involved here. A lot of it depends on Starting points and presuppositions. So it was interesting to hear different people coming from different places and social locations. And with the different set of concerns addressing the same questions of authorship, New Testament, Canon formation, the history of early Christianity, and the design of the conference was, you know, spiked my one imposter syndrome and social anxiety because it was like close. Quarters combat. I initially thought it was going to kind of be a mini conference where we kind of give our paper and then kind of dodged a few questions and then faded to the background. But it was it was kind of like a think tank. So all the people that were there were also participating in some way. So you couldn't like Escape after throwing some flaming arrows at anybody. So but that meant that some of the questions are pushed back on. One paper or one discussion kind of circled back around. And I learned a lot from not just people's papers but also the questions that they were asking the objections, they were raising in the kind of points of resonance, so I thought that was an interesting part of the format, but then also just this issue of authorship is a perennial. And fruitful area. Sometimes it's a debate that gets kind of into the same Lanes, kind of get into some ruts about the same types of discussions and debates but in some ways it was very it's an interdisciplinary question. So it kind of prompts a lot of interesting questions so let's kind of Kind of the overview of what we were doing there. All right. So Madison you presented, as I said, on authorship of Hebrews which is I mean, every time you're on this podcast, if anybody listens at all, they know that that at some point in every discussion, I asked you who the author of Hebrews is so, but you were, you were actually set up really boring troll of all time. And yet here we are with you presenting an academic paper on the issue, so worked out in my favor. So once you talk through a little bit of yours because really, what you're dealing with is the fact that we don't know The author is, we don't know who the recipients are and sort of how that affects how we read the book. So talk through a little bit of kind of your big idea, big thesis. And then I'll let Chad sort of respond and interact with you and let you guys talk through some of that. Speaker 2 Yeah. And by the way, if I meet somebody on the street that has listened to your podcast, they asked me immediately Kubrick papers. So it is a big part of my life and I just don't know what to do with that. Speaker 1 This is awesome that you've told me more than once. One story about some random person joke about that. So that's good to know that my listeners are already taken care of it. Yeah, they're my listening to taking care of taking care of me out there. Alright, Speaker 2 so my neighbor does the writing of my paper was a little bit strange so first of all, I mean the conference looks really cool. I'm always looking for a chance to get back to Texas. So even though you know, authorship is not my primary thing I thought, well, this is a chance to go somewhere. Cool. And to be back in And so I'll put something in or whatever and I'm really glad I did because it, you know, as Ted said, it was a really enriching experience and if nothing else, it was fun to hang out with everybody for a few days. But as far as my paper goes, you know, so I kind of went into it and I wanted to say like how do I not repeat the same old boring stuff about authorship and basically say here's what sounds of thought and here's what it sounds so thought and at the end of the day we have no idea what's going on. On here. So I tried to think about what some of the more interesting angles were which one would be, you know, why would an author provide an anonymous composition and I don't know that I even got tort, you know, I don't think that I answered that question as well as I would want to, because I got a little distracted, and I'll come back to why in a minute, but then the other thing I wanted to do was to talk about the anonymous address sees those who have now been called Hebrews. Because I, I really think that the title Hebrews which generally would refer to somebody who is either he hebrew-speaking Jew or somebody. From a particular period in Israel's history of those are the two kind of dominant definitions. That we see though there are others. Neither of those likely applies to the audience and you know addressed by Hebrews and in fact, I like many others in modern scholarship, don't actually think that Hebrews is written into To a predominantly Jewish congregation. And so I was thinking, you know, what do we do with that? And I've, you know, Rob wall and some others have kind of posed this question and wondered, you know, what is this pair textual feature, do you know paratext in terms of the manuscripts? So looking at some of that but what was interesting to me is in trying to answer this question about address these and why the title might have been applied, I did end up getting into the authorship thing because one of the Actions wasn't necessarily who wrote Hebrews, but why do people say this person or that person or that person wrote it? And so, it was more about what the kind of rationale was an early Christian Literature. Like, Paul must not have put his name on this because the Jewish people had a bias against him or Paul didn't put his name on this, because he didn't want to step on Jesus territory, because Jesus was the Apostle to the Jews or the messenger to the Jews. He didn't want Stefan Peters to Toes like these are all explanations that we get in early Christian literature and so I ended up on this kind of Rabbit Trail towards authorship but it was supposed to be in service of this other kind of bigger question. So that's all stop there but that's the gist of it. Speaker 1 All right. So Chad what was you were there for the paper I'm guessing, right? You guys were all in the same room for the most part. So what are some of your maybe questions or interactions with Madison's paper? Because there is a lot going on there, in terms of who wrote it, why they wrote it who received it. So are some things that stuck out to you that you wanted to interact with Madison on or ask her about. I did think the one. I thought it was interesting. Take on the title to the Hebrews and then the question of Different people at the conference took different angles on the anonymity or authorship question. So I thought it was a helpful dialogue partner. Our dialogue concept to think not just about Anonymous authorship, but thinking about the way that Anonymous address, he's or just thinking about the effect that it has on us as readers when we assume something about who they are, who the the intended. It's are so thinking about the title as a textual feature that relates Hebrews, in one sense to the Pauline Corpus, very similar to the other titles of the Paul's letters. But also to this, General address to the way that the Catholic Epistles start their letters. Even just thinking about a theological characterization of the author audience, It's so as Madison discussed, if you're thinking, if you're taking your cues for audience, not only from the title, but from the internal indications, the way that the author is characterizing his readers. So could you say a little bit more about what you mean by like? If we're thinking is your Reflections purely on thinking about what the Hebrews could mean or what would that? How would that change? If you're thinking about the way that the author himself? Characterizes his listeners. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a helpful question. So one of the reasons that I think Hebrews is such a strange title for Hebrews. I'm so I'm going to purchase question the slightly different angle, but I that I hope I'll answer you. Well, eventually one of the reasons I think that title is so strange is because the author unlike Paul, in particular doesn't really use ethnic language to refer to anybody within the text. He doesn't talk about Hebrews or Jews or Gentiles, or anything like that, it's a detox. He addresses, those who are within a family of God. And so, of course, in our under historical understanding, we would take the family of God, to be the Jewish people. So it makes sense that we would kind of understand these people at least figuratively to to be in that group. But Hebrews doesn't appear anywhere that that particular, ethnic designation, and then, but neither does Jews or anything like that. Soda pick that Terminology that strikes me as rather strange and so, that was one of the points for me is kind of thinking, okay, what about this composition has led someone, presumably not the author but somebody to put this title on it. And so I would take it to be the case that they won. My think that that reflects the actual address, these that they would be those who are, as I said, Hebrew speaking, Jewish people or that? They may have some historic ties to to the people of God from the Exile or something like that. But one of the reasons that that first one is so interesting is because they, for two reasons, one, the compositions, obviously, in Greek and it's in a very Vance Creek. And in fact, a lot of the argument is, is based on Greek, the Greek version Subscription or they don't work with the Hebrew version, because it introduces various word, play or vocabulary, kind of distinctions and things like that. But the second thing is in Chad, and I talked about this a little bit at the conference so he, you know, he's heard this before but what I find really interesting is that if we look at the history of reception, some of the conversations around who wrote Hebrews in the early in the early church, they talk about this being a Hebrew composition. From Paul or some kind of something that existed in in Hebrew at some point via Paul that was translated by someone like Luke or Clement. So then it becomes Greek and so you could say, oh okay, well that makes sense then they could be hebrew-speaking people because whenever Paul put this together, it was Hebrew composition. But what I was mentioning to chat is that we actually see in the western church in Rome and Specifically, like, in tertullian a mention of this letter as the letter to the Hebrews, but with no attribution to Paul and so I think it's possible that the title and the polyline tradition are independent of one another that we can't say for sure. But it's interesting that in the Roman Church, we don't see anybody attributing. Hebrews to Paul for quite some time. In fact, it's either you know it's there's no author a fixed or You know, it's Barnabas or something else. And so that's kind of these are the dilemmas that I was trying to address, and I don't know. Feel free to add a few in a follow-up. If I didn't get to the specific nuances of what you wanted to hear more constructive way. Speaker 1 Oh no, that's that's good. Yeah, okay, so one of the questions that I was just thinking about, as you guys were talking, is it, are you at the point with Hebrew scholarship? And I know the authorship thing does become a joke. If there is sort of a thing where there's always seems to be there's a quest for the historical author of Hebrews, you know, there's a quest for the audience are you at we as you're going through your paper as you were thinking through that. Is there what do you propose an audience and say like well this actually maybe is more likely that the audience or there's something in here that helps us understand what the context is of, why this is being written and why these issues are being addressed or is it kind of like with the author? It's just we're not going to ever really have a strong answer on that. Would you say that? Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a great question. I do have some positions that I hold to Loosely even about authorship. I do actually have an author that I think, is the most likely of the options, but I'll never tell. Speaker 1 Apparently, you'll never tell. Maybe if I can ask you in just the right serious moment at just the right moment. You don't think I'm trolling you. Maybe I can get you the answer. So yeah, I'm gonna see ya. It's good. It's not there. Speaker 2 Oh, I wish it were. But yeah, so one of the reasons that I find the historical background of Hebrews. So difficult, is the question that I have the most difficulty with is, actually the date. I have a sense that he bruises pre 70, but I can't tell if that's actually the product of my kind of Evangelical conservative bias, because there's because it looks like something like Romans you know, the appeal The scripture, the argumentation stuff like that. But I mean, there are various features of the text, like the appeal to the Tabernacle rather than the temple and other kinds of things that would work rather well with the post 70 dating. And in fact the the extent of persecution and and there is a discussion about, you know, are these Christians actually experiencing something significant, or is it rhetorical or are we reading too much into it and thinking they're being persecuted more than they are similar to conversations about weak person? Her and stuff. I personally think that even though he says, you know, you have not resisted to the point of shedding blood, I do think that there's really significant stuff going on there. I mean, they're being imprisoned, they're having their property confiscated as fall in Hebrews 10. So, this is not nothing persecution. This isn't just kind of like, hey, you're dumb, you're a Christian, you know, like them getting kind of mocked or whatever, which some would argue is, and I'm sorry, lacking the ones here but some would argue is something more akin to what's going on. Unlike in First Peter. So that's one of the things that would fit better with a later date. If it really has escalated to a pretty significant point. And so I do think that a Roman that the recipients being in Rome makes sense for various reasons, including the concept of persecution stuff, but I don't hold to that. You know, for really tightly and I try not to when I'm interpreting to locate my interpretations or the time I interpretations too closely to any of these particular positions because I don't want it to be a condo flank. Jenga set where, if, you know, if we pull out Roman provenance, then all of a sudden, like everything I've said about Hebrews like completely falls apart because it's I just can't hold it that closely. And I do have concerns about like, me or reading and stuff like that as well. So, Speaker 1 Yeah, you've mentioned to, on, authorship you mentioned before, like part of the reason why we come up with these different authors is because we like, we just choose from a set of people who we already know, you know, the author of Hebrews getting somebody we've never heard of, but we always think of it being somebody who we know, maybe an associate of Paul. You know, that someone in Narrows it down to a handful of people that we know were with him a lot that type of thing. Do we do the same thing in some sense with the audience, right? I mean you're talking about even at being called Hebrews but just thinking through some of those issues, Of well, we know kind of what was going on in the first century in Rome. So we can generally say, your persecution was not surprising, we all know persecution happened, for example. So those kind of things were already, I guess importing importing a little bit. What would you say is the biggest, maybe the biggest problem, or the worst thing that is imported in the Hebrews that you've seen in scholarship or just maybe assumptions that you're like, everybody says this. And I just don't think that's the case at all when it comes to particularly, maybe the audience are what's what the purpose is. Speaker 2 Yeah, it's it does have to do with the purpose. I think that the most problematic or most troubling conclusion that the majority of Scholars come to is that Hebrews is a book written to people who are considering reverting back to Judaism. Because of and I hate that for a couple of different reasons. One. I think that that's a problematic construal of early Christianity at this point because it assumes that these people are not they don't consider themselves Jewish it. Can you know that they're not practicing, you know, that they're clearly not Torah. Observant. I think that doesn't fit with what we see in Hebrews personally. But then it's also has to do with just the ways that the Ben's is red and it's it's actually pretty flimsy. What they're taking to be this kind of reversion mentality and stuff. So that's that's the thing that I want to go away the fastest because I think that it has some really harmful implications for how we read Hebrews, because that is something that we, you know, we read through and think oh okay. The author is worried that they're going to NG to keep doing sacrifices. The author is worried that they're going to keep following dietary restrictions etc, etc, etc. And so we read various passages in line of fat and so that's where a lot of the really super specialist readings and, or anti-jewish readings of Hebrews come in and, and yeah. So that's my answer, for Speaker 1 sure. Okay, well we're 25 minutes. I'm already. So I'm going to let shed give a synopsis of his paper medicine, let you respond. And then if I think of a interesting question of a jump in, so Chad wants you want to take it off, my paper was titled bear with this Anonymous exhortation? So here, I'm in examining the possible hermeneutical effect that Anonymous authorship, might have if we just for the sake of argument assume that Anonymous texts are in the New Testament, What if possible effects might they have for the earliest and latest readers of the New Testament? That's another coping mechanism I have is I usually write a thesis and then as I get closer to presenting it, I just hedge it. So let's say something like exploring or my favorite is toward so like not toward a discussion of possible hermeneutical effects, that could be the case. If we That anonymous sex are there, but one of the things that I tried to do is distinguish between the concepts of anonymity and pseudonymity. So some people at the conference thought that was really important. Others thought it was not as important to distinguish those. So part of that is because as an attempt to kind of sidestep some of the common arguments about pseudonymity. So, the issue of whether there are pseudepigrapha works in the New Testaments perennial perennially contested, but the issue of anonymity is less controversial, but sometimes neglected as a interesting historic hermeneutical issue. So my modest goal was just to suggest that anonymity might have a rhetorical or hermeneutical effect on readers, especially if we might be able to determine that this The anonymity was intentional and not incidental. I'm so, even if we're not able to connect in an inanimate E2 authorial intention, I was just exploring the possible effects that it has Harold bloom. Once spoke of the anxiety of influence talking about the way that poets navigate the idea of being influenced by their predecessors. So, I talked about in New Testament, studies, There's oftentimes, an anxiety of authorship. So a very hesitancy or its kind of fraught with difficulty when you talk, about author authorial intention. So I started with the assumption that the gospels are formally Anonymous. In the sense that in the text, in the body of the text itself, they don't name themselves. And then also first, John and Hebrews as examples of letters that start without the normal epistolary, Vengeance. So with these brilliant opening sentences. So rather than a he said, seat, she said situation sometimes readers of the New Testament are faced with a he said, who said, six scenario and that one over here as bad as well as it did in the conference when I presented it. But we're both smiling will just were smiling when you have Chuck the Brits and the Australians just went mmm. So so the idea is that despite this formal anonymity each of these each of those writings that we could categorize as Anonymous also foreground the idea or notion of authorship in some particular way. So for example, Luke the Gospel of Luke starts with the prologue but does it name himself? So adopting some of the Greco Roman biography conventions but blending that with possibly A Convention of Old Testament historiography by not including the name, so interesting, coming together of genre conventions. Of course, John, at the end of his gospel, says, these things have been written so that you might believe. So talking about for fronting that textual nature of the writings, of course, Hebrews bear with this expectation for I've written to you briefly Lee. So the four possible implications that I just considered was authorship Anonymous authorship as a meaningful feature of genre choice so see raising the possibility of a known author producing an essentially anonymous text. So if the author is known by the first readers what implications or what might that, what effect might that have if they produce Anonymous text or the here, the choice to write a narrative versus an epistle. Is a choice to present the notion of authorship in a particular way. So, a possible analogy here, that I just gave as a possible, is like, an unnamed character in a narrative. It's possible that the author doesn't know who that narrative that character is. And that's why there's, it's not named, but it's also possible that there's an intentional rhetorical All purpose for that pattern of naming. So that would be an example of the author, the readers, and the first that original context might very well know those details in that, the, the names of those. But it could be for a particular reason. So, maybe the woman at the well, or the Beloved disciple, for example, in the Gospel of John, I'm so seeing that as a feature non-anonymous authorship or at the very least here, I'm just talking about the way that the text presents the notion of authorship. So the there's a paper, I think Steve Walton gave a paper on the shape of Acts Luke and acts of the, we passages in the book of Acts, the function of those as possible. Indicators of eyewitness testimony not to be confused with the we passage of Luke. Which is the Zacchaeus narrative. Because he was a wee little wee. Little man. Oh man, that is that wasn't discussed at the conference so those neglected. But the we passages of Acts are interesting because there's that of course that well-known shift between first-person and third-person narration. And so it's, you know, it's possible that it's a historical critical error that he was using a source and forgot as an incompetent author to switch back and to smooth it over or he's signaling that he is. Using sources and so he kept it in there or if he's think if you're thinking about a compositional strategy that includes the whole book that there might be a purpose for that. So that was just an idea. There's the anonymous anonymity as a meaningful Choice. Our feature of genre choice and I'll try to do this the rest more quickly, but Anonymous authorship second as a meaningful feature of canonical location. So that was kind of what we were grappling with it the in the broader discussion as well. Well, as if these are Anonymous texts, they are had been collected in a reception history that clearly identifies names early and uncontested namings and titles are at the very least with these names. So if this is intentional, what dynamic could that play? And it's possible that the reason why we think that the gospels are surprisingly Anonymous, is because we read them in Collection that sits right next to Paul who signals authorship in a very, direct way alongside a Litany of co-authors or co-laborers. So, if you're reading the gospels in a collection that includes Paul's letters, you're going to the New Testament. Reader, might notice a contrast between the way that authorship is depicted. And then also like second century apocryphal gospels are Autonomous gospels that have the attribution of direct attribution of authorship as a dramatic part of their revelatory claim. I Thomas wrote this or for example, so, the gospels don't do that. So if this is intentional that my idea that I threw out there, if this is intentional, it could possibly be a sign of Canon Consciousness where the a new testament author, as Chosen to write a narrative for the purpose of demonstrating that not just the words of Jesus are important. But also the narrative about his ministry, or the narrative about his death and Resurrection are important as well. And then also as a possible connection to the Old Testament historiography. So the prophetic history, which it, which are Anonymous, texts that are inter and intertextual. So not if that is your primary Connecting Point, then it's not a surprise as to, at least the moves that the gospel writers are making. So thinking about the gospel writers possibly shaping their narrative patterns on the prophetic history rather than only a Greco-Roman biography tradition for example. The second, the, the final ones that I did was it's kind of what we've already talked about before as Anonymous authorship, in relation to historical reconstruction, and then Anonymous authorship in relation to Divine discourse. So, anonymity itself forces, a reader to navigate the issues of authorship, audience provenance, and purpose in a slightly different manner than if you have a named author. So, it Prompts a series of questions that you have to work through with an anonymous text. And so, part of the point here is that those particular questions are also in play, even when there is a named author, you're still having to Think Through, Ok? Well, how much of Paul's biography needs to be read into this discussion or this conflict or something. So, the example I used here was we have Even in Paul's letters, we have sometimes Anonymous interlocutors. So sometimes Paul very directly says, this is what I'm addressing with these people. And this is why they are, I'm addressing them in other times. He talks very much, more vague or unspecified. So, for example, the colossian heresy, like, what is Paula dressing in the letter to the Colossians It's possible that he doesn't know the nature of the threat. It's also possible that he does know, it's much more likely that he does know exactly what he's addressing and the readers do. But he's chosen in the book of Colossians to leave it relatively unspecified, which is a contrast to some of his other letters. So, it's possible that the identity of the opponent or the issue. And some letters is intentional. And the essentially, an anonymous, interlocutor is intentional. It could have a rhetorical or literary or theological effect that naming the author or the specific situation would have. Impacted the way that the shape of Colossians unfolds, for example. And then finally going along here, the idea that if one of the effects of anonymous authorship could be that it emphasizes or is a way to highlight double agency discourse that as you're reading a text that emphasizes speech like in Hebrews or their has a kind of homological elements or in the Gospels. Long blocks of Jesus's discourse. It's well suited to the claim that this is not just the words of the author but it's representing the word divine discourse that you're hearing the words of Jesus. Even though you know, that you're hearing the words of Matthew or the narrate the narrator or Paul. So the modest argument over all in all of these are this is the part of the issue of doing something in like the SM in our Old Testament, biblical studies guilds all of the claims, almost every term that is used as debatable and contested. But the modest argument our claim that I was making is that the presence of anonymous text in the New Testament, are an opportunity to reconsider some of the factors of reading. And interpretation, there are always in play, but are sometimes unacknowledged or unaccounted for? So I liked related to what Madison was saying. A second ago, that historical reconstruction is often like a Jenga Tower and some of these towers and biblical studies are very impressive. Like a virtuoso performance, like, wow, you walk into a room and there's a Jenga Tower. That's to the ceiling. You're like that is amazing, but it's like oh look at this. This one down here. What if you pulled this one tiny little thing out here? Then it's like that impressive structure is going to is going to collapse, so that doesn't mean that historical reconstruction is necessarily illegitimate but it does mean. I think it should temper the way that we Are the amount of confidence we have in our historical reconstruction and at the very least that was kind of the point. I was kind of pushing at it. Should prompt us to at least be cautious or mindful of how much of that historical reconstruction is actually governing. The way that we are seeing. What is in it was in a particular text or something like that. So yeah Speaker 2 that's I think that's really a helpful place to Ted. Because that was one of the things. So I didn't get to go to Chad's paper because they had two parallel sessions. And I think Chad was in my session at some point got moved out. I was so disappointed, but he graciously sent me a paper after the fact, and I think he and I were wrestling with similar Dynamics because I kind of opened by saying, you know, I tell my students, that learning about the backgrounds is important that understanding about the first century is really something. That we need to do to be able to read scripture well or better or something like that. And but then what we're doing in this conference and in this conversation is saying that. Yeah, we have to hold these historical reconstructions Loosely. And so I personally am still thinking through, you know, where we find that balance, where we, we tell our students, where we tell ourselves and those we interact with our, you know, the people that we preach to, you know, it's good for you to understand this thing about the person. Three. But there's some looseness that we have to hold. So when you were talking, she said it made me think of. But in his obeying, the truth, John Barclay has a discussion about newer. Reading that's, that's become kind of programmatic. I believe it's in there, and then DJ Gupta has followed up and in Hebrews studies. Brian Dyer, has written a kind of third piece. And as and their, I'm sure there are others who interacted with Concept, but each of them is saying, you know, from a methodological standpoint, how do we try to be more responsible in the way that we portray these historical reconstructions? You know, like, I think, John Barclay talks about, you know, talking about things as possible versus possible, and has these various criteria and stuff. And I just think that's, that's a useful, reminder, that we probably do need. Need to be more careful. Because as you say, there are these, like, incredible Towers. I mean, if you think about the significant movements and pollen studies in particular, over the last 50 years, the New Perspective. And now Paul within Judaism are effectively ideologies, or, you know, ways of reading Paul that are built on historical reconstructions. And one of the reasons that the New Perspective is effectively dead is because the Charcoal reconstruction on which it is built has now become you know, defunct that we understand that there were various assumptions that those early proponents made that just don't work. And Paul within Judaism you know, has taken the help of parts of the New Perspective and other even traditional pollens you know, Scholars have picked up pieces that that were probably helpful and then they've moved in their own directions. But I do I wonder if, you know, when, when will we learn something new and have to, you know, break off additional pieces of the reconstructions and stuff like that? So Speaker 1 yeah. I think that I think that's a helpful point to note, and it's also one of the reasons why it's so difficult to critique a historical background Paradigm like Paul within Judaism or the New Perspective on Paul because it's not always about a piece of evidence, the interpretation of a particular text or piece of evidence. But it's the entire it's not necessarily what you're always thinking about, it's the set of assumptions, you're thinking with which makes it. This is typically a historical discussion but it's the hermeneutical. This Dimension is often neglect neglected as well or related in a different way because oftentimes it's not like what is the significance of the Mercury? And fragment, or What was the significance of these titles? It's what are the assumptions that we're making that they're not only dictating or affecting our conclusions, but they're also affecting what we're actually seeing. I think one of the games that I play with My students, I hesitate to to talk about Hebrew scholarship with Madison on the podcast. But yeah, it was just me and someone else I would carry forth and hold court on Hebrew scholarship but not right now. But the I get a little game I play is talking about the temple and Hebrews and how important its relationship to Judaism is. And also, Important to complexify that relationship but thinking about. Okay, Hebrews is talking about the sacrifices. So it's talking about the temple, right? And so I play this little game is like oh who can tell me a passage, that's Where's the temple, show up in Hebrews and of course, everybody raises their hand and say, okay, find it and then you know, they all go it and at first they had come up with all these passages. Oh, this is about the sacrificial system or said, okay. Well, that's the sacrificial system. Okay. That's It's something else and like, where's the temple, show up in Hebrews and of course, then they figure out what the game is. It's like, it's actually not there, it's talking about the Tabernacle. So even thinking about the dating question in relation to the destruction of the temple in ad 70, but it's one of the things to note, too, is like, if Hebrews is the knowledge of the sacrificial system is a literary knowledge drawing from the pentateuch. Leviticus and the portrayal of The Exodus and exodus and Deuteronomy. Then it doesn't doesn't dictate a new conclusion but it definitely opens up different possibilities. So if it's specific, if the author of Hebrews is speaking and pointing to the temple that standing right behind them are in the in the vicinity well that limits the set of associations you can make with Jerusalem, or Palestine area. But if he's pointing to Torah or Torah can travel to where I can be in Antioch torque and be in all over these all these different places. If the nature of his argument is based not necessarily on first simple first century Judaism. But the real particular reading of Torah than that. Could at the very least impact the way that The historical background is presented or seen in relationship to that. Now, Speaker 2 so the, another question that I had or something, I went into Russell, through is some, the, I really appreciated, Chad, and I had something like this in my paper as well. Talking about the differences between on the one hand, pseudepigrapha, be in an enmity, but also, you know, what kinds of things are. You did. Yeah. Within the cannon and what things are actually found in Tradition. And one of the reasons you know, with my Ted students in particular that I always like to point this out is because it's it really is different to say that Paul didn't write second Timothy. Then it is to say that John didn't write. First John were Luke didn't write Luke because it is stated in the text. And so what I wanted to pull them through one is to say that you know, as sadly anti-catholic as know, a number of you are, some of these positions are actually part of tradition and tradition, of course, in a different way than our Catholic brothers and sisters. Understand, but, you know, we're pulling from the history of interpretation and all of that. We say that John is the Beloved disciple or John wrote. First John or second, John or third John, even, you know, with the elders is John is not named in second and third John, the Elder is and so who the Elder is another kind of thing. So, you know, I think that's and that's an important distinction. So I in my paper on tried to to distinguish between rhetorical anonymity, which would be where you have, there's no name a fix. Just to a text like Hebrews and then something like historical anonymity and I think Hebrews is not a historically Anonymous document. I think it's pretty clear that whoever received Hebrews knew who wrote it and the same with Luke. I mean, I think I do think Luke is the, you know, likely author of The Gospel in Acts but his name is not a fixed there, but I think one of the reasons that the tradition with Luke axis, so strong is because people were aware of that and it has a clearer recipient and a provenance. Know how bad that makes sense. And so, you know, Hebrews is really pretty exceptional in this regard because the Traditions around authorship. Although some people say that, you know, Paul is the clear favorite early on and that, you know, it's Universal evidence and all that, that's really not true. There's in the earliest centuries of Christianity. There's a lot more ambiguity in the literature about who wrote Hebrews and so that is a very Three different situation than it is for the other texts where usually there's a pretty early on, you know, some kind of consensus and then later there becomes questions. Maybe second Peter is another, but obviously, that there were switching to something like pseudo kicker fee, or a possible pseudepigrapha rather than in an enmity. So yeah, I just want to throw those out there. But also, you know, I wonder, Chad, one of the things that I've been wanting to ask you is about And the historical reconstructions, the reception of these texts and the the reception of these types within the Canon, because I wonder how you feel about associating, Hebrews with the pollen Corpus. And in what ways you might want to say it is pollen or not, given the way that it was received and canonized and Speaker 1 stuff. Yeah, I think that's excellent. I've first, I really like the way that you characterize rhetorical anonymity because I think that that's a good. Label for what I was trying to Grapple with with like at an unnamed character could be historical and an empty like the author doesn't know or the readers, don't know, but it could have a purpose. So it's the same thing with a character or an interlocutor or perhaps even at the level of the composition as a whole. I thought that was really helpful, I almost when I was revising in submitting the essay, I was I started to use, I was like, well I'll just I don't want to like take Take some of these things from these conversations in the embedded into the paper that's submitted for the for the book as if like. Oh yeah, that's what I had originally thought in the paper as well. So I refrain from doing that but I thought I thought that was a helpful point and I think your point about the effect of reception history sometimes as unacknowledged so especially for readers But it that discussion, I think does prompt or demonstrate at the very least, the effect that both canonical reception or collection has on readers as if you're going to think about the nature of Hebrews in the nude within the scope of the New Testament, you're going to be thinking, how does this relate to Paul? And how does this relate to the rest of the New Testament? Because I think that's one of the things that you see in the Evidence. And of course I'd love to hear you, correct me? If I'm wrong on some, any of this with Hebrews is thinking about the it's a movement. It moves towards the end of the pollen Corpus, but never it's never circulated apart from the Pauline Corpus. So that's a dual demonstration that there were questions about the association with Paul, but they weren't strong enough to exclude Hebrews from the Pauline Corpus. For the most part. So Hebrews at the end of the Pauline Corpus. So even in our our New Testaments today, the reason that Paul follows Philemon is because it's still connected to the Pauline Corpus in that sense. So, even the the Tyndale Greek, New Testament, moves, move some things around, but it's still connected to the the pollen. Corpus. And so I think that represents the the early and continued connection between Hebrews and Paul's letters. But also a clear empirical demonstration that there was also concerns to read it on its own terms within its own idiom in relation to either the rest of the New Testament or at the very least Flagging that there are discussions or issues about this. You can see that in like, Eusebius is discussion of the cannon or the New Testament letters. And then also, within the manuscript tradition itself, let me ask you, guys. This, this is kind of related to some of this conversation about authorship and Authority in, we know who wrote it and tradition and all that kind of stuff. One of the big sort of defaults, a lot of people go to is the reason why we consider these books to be canonical, is at least in part, because they're either on that episodic authorship or the authorship is You don't associate so Mark or somebody like that, right? Who's a known associate of an apostle? How much do you guys think at the end of the day, the authorship and Authority question go together, right? Because this is tends to be a pretty big argument for the authority of the Canon that we have so many medicine you can start and then Chad you can follow up just kind of big picture of thoughts. How important is that? How do we is that a? Can we still demonstrate the authority of Hebrews? If we don't know who wrote it, right? That's one of these types of questions are first John or, or a second? Jean or whatever. So yeah, just some of those questions. Speaker 2 Yeah, but see, I'd let I'm definitely Keen to hear what which ad says, so if he contradicts me in any way, then just throw whatever I say at the window. So this is one of the conversations we had at the conference Maurice Smith and in particular, was pushing towards the idea that every text in the New Testament is Apostolic though. I think he would follow up and say though they're not all Apostolic in the same way. And so I think that the two categories You've pointed out that we have one apostles who are writing or two, we have Affiliates or those connected to Apostolic tradition that they would be, that would be the two kind of categories. And again, Chad, please feel free to Nuance this. If I've missed out on Marie's argument or anything. But so for Hebrews he would say that Hebrews 2 3, or at least somewhere in Hebrews 2124 that it says that those who have heard that. At that, we received what those who heard from the Lord passed on. And so, effectively this is, you know, generally and Hebrew scholarship is an idea that their second generation but I don't know. I don't know. That that's a clear indication of chronology. It's at least an idea of separation from the present or from those who walked with Jesus. And so they are not you know, whoever's riding is not Apostolic, the recipients are not Apostolic that they have a connection to those who first heard Jesus. So that would be the connection there. But in terms of the bigger question that you're posing the relationship between authorship and and Authority. I actually kind of wonder if we're able to answer that question now because in my understanding this is maybe we're chatter now we might disagree. I think of the canonical process is you know the ways that texts are produced though. I think that what Though, I think there's a more kind of flexible understanding for me about the idea, the idea of cooperation among authors, like, Co senders, like, some kind of johanan community that may be involved in something. Like John 21, the whoever, you know, may have added something about Moses death in the pentateuch. I mean, these kinds of redaction all layers where we, we might have of one single important author, like Paul or Moses or John but then we have others involved in the compositional redaction process. I think that that's, you know, pretty standard explanation though. I don't know that we always articulate it. So that would be the first layer that God was involved in the production of the text. And that's generally the way that I would talk about it because I would want it to be as flexible as some of what I've said here. But then I also would talk about God being involved in the transmission and preservation of the text and especially in the form that we have it. And this is, of course, important to me for a lot of different reasons for manuscript studies for canonicity for, you know, various other things. And so now, what has been preserved for us, are these texts? And so, this is why I would say that there's an extent to which asking that question about the first centuries is harder for us because we would say that these texts were received as helpful and I think authoritative, and so we use them, but we're Not at this point if we find out that Hebrews was written by some Rando and Ephesus, we're not going to like egg signs it from the cannon. I mean, if you do, it'll be Over My Dead Body. So I think that this conversation is a little difficult for my perspective and maybe I'm problematize it more than I need to. But again, I became to here where Chad might want to push back or new on some of what I've said. Speaker 1 No, I think, I think that you raised a lot of the important issues of of the discussion. I think that was one of my favorite parts of the conference's. We they did the little, the panels with you, Maurice, Maurice Smith, and Simon gather Colt, and then just kind of thinking through some of the questions about authorship and apostille Issa tea. That in particular when we start talking about these types of broader issues as where we kind of get back to the whatever, our first few layers are on the Ginga board, they might be the same pieces, but if we if we if they're all stacked on top of each other or if they're like in a pattern or something that's going to affect the way that we think of all of these questions. So I do think even as you're thinking about the relationship between Authority, And authorship. I do think the concept of authority is tied to the notion of a pasta olicity for sure. This came up in some of those discussions as well. I think a lot of the criteria for canonicity is probably the worst expression. I tend to think of these as retrospective criteria for recognition. Not just not just because of the Temporary confessional perspective. But because it seems to me that that's the way that I read the discussions in the early church is that's what how they were employing these issues like, apostille acidity, Antiquity Orthodoxy, and Widespread usage. I think those are one cumulative and interlocking, of course. And you see different authors using them in different ways, but a lot of them swirl around the idea of the teaching of the Apostles and the proclamation and transmission of the early Christian teaching, the curriculum of The apostles Antiquity goes with the time of the Apostles, Orthodoxy goes with the idea. Does it cohere with the teaching of the Apostles of the teachings of the Apostles? And according to the scriptures? So thinking about not just the emphasis in the early church or the discussion about authorship. But all of those retrospective criteria for recognition or swirling around this idea, It of the preaching of The Gospel According to the scriptures, then becomes the core concept that is used to evaluate people teachers but also writings. And so the you know depending on how you think the flow of early Christian history went, this is some of those interlocking pillars. So if we talk about external Catalyst for Canon, And, and that's one of the things I think is helpful, is to shift, not only thinking about the criteria for recognition, but also the Catalyst for Cannon, would there have been a new testament without false teachers or without a need to set boundaries, a lot of the participants in our conference would say, know that it was external Catalyst of the 4th Century. But I think if you allow the idea of internal Catalyst, that Not only was the In and pulled by external factors. But also pushed by something internal, I would locate that as a, the Great Commission impulse of teach them, baptize them in the name of the father, son and spirit, and teach them, all the things that I've commanded, commanded you and lo, I Am With You Always to the End of the Age. So you get this idea of community but also the idea of teaching that's been passed along and then Matthew's gospel lo and behold, is the means by which you fulfill the Great Commission because it has large blocks of Jesus discourse and kind of a impulse to make disciples. So this idea of the real, one of the reasons why there's a collection of biblical text is for the purpose of discipleship and also for the purpose of a natural organic response to new revelation of a new covenant, So that primary prompters of written texts in the Old Testament, era is The Exodus and the Exile, two major events have God's salvation and judgment on Israel and it prompts a narration and interpretation of that Redemptive history. And so, this is one of those things about the Reconstruction of the early church. If there was a stable Hebrew Bible, or however you want to call that, if there was a Hebrew law prophets and writings at the time of the New Testament. Then, in my view, that means that there's already a precedent for a stable literary body of text. So that in my formulation, the New Testament was never without a cannon because even the earliest Creed's that we have are the proclamation of The Gospel, According to the scriptures. So there was a new testament studies. We talked about this long process for the textual ization of the tradition. But part of what I want to say is that even in the earliest forms of the kerygma, there's always a textural element because it's always according to the scriptures. So at the very least, I think that's evidence that you can say that. They're at least the concept of Canon, the concept of authoritative collection of texts functioning as a rule, as a way of ruling out. Some things and ruling in others is present early. So that's Is it Focus primarily on figuring out authorship? But it's one of those factors that requires you to answer a whole host of things about what took place in the in the early earliest churches. So, that's what was fat. That's what's fascinating to me about the discussion. Here is a this conference is a new testament, Guild conference in some ways. But the questions that it promises Comps are ones that require the full scope of the disciplines to even talk about was interesting, you're bringing up to the, the idea of external forces and internal forces, you know, this is controversial in some circles. But, you know, this idea that we only have the Canon because of Heretics, or we only have the doctrine of the Trinity because of Heretics, and it's interesting if you, I mean, at least, in my view, if you read the sources, Part of the reason why rnas knows the gnostics are wrong is because there's already an assumed Apostolic tradition. There's already some sort of a kerygma a set of principles to say, now that's not right. Like you know this this gospel that says that Jesus was a petulant teenager who smited kids who picked on him, you know is like that doesn't seem to fit with what we have already received, you know? Or yeah that's a that's an extreme example but you know Jesus having a relationship with Mary Magdalene or these different things, it's not like iron ass is sitting around going well we should probably Beta. Is he saying, no, you're wrong because of x y z. Or when you get two areas you know kind of popping up in the fourth century and you know five years four years before the Council of nicaea the Synod in Africa, that Alexander LED as well brings areas and they all say no areas, you're wrong. We this is because we're already teaching this. We already believe this so we can spot what's wrong because we already have a set standard set of boundaries. So that's an interesting conversation that comes out of it, to write a sort of When you're reading the first Christians, quote-unquote, the apostolic fathers. And after they seem to already have a pretty good idea of what they consider to be canonical. There's obviously questions about certain books and stuff like that, right? And you got origin talking about how there's still some dispute about some books but that seems to be overblown in some circles as well. The early church didn't know what their Bible was because there's like a couple of questions probably reason why this question is because they didn't have the printing press. And not everybody had access to everything, but also those, the part of the reason why those questions Because they actually care enough to make sure that they're being rigorous in what they would consider to be authoritative and not right. So maybe just if you guys want to respond where we're at an hour at this point already, but if you guys want to maybe give kind of a just a closing response to that of sort of the text that we have why we considered authoritative. Why do we believe this is our Bible and we stake our lives on it. Maybe just give kind of a closing reflection on that big Speaker 2 question. Yeah, I took them briefly, if that's okay. Because again, I have seen that shed will just clean up my mess. I am. I mean, yeah, I think that I do think that the maybe this is like, super on-brand for me, but I think that portraying the cannon in terms of combat and conflict is troubling to me. Because I think that it it assumes that there wasn't the recognition of what is good in these texts. Before that, that is like, Let's decide that these tips are helpful because they address a problem rather than these guys are good and useful. And they were shaping early Christianity and then there were some issues around the boundaries that had to be clarified. And so this is where yeah, I wouldn't I think about can and I think that Chad use the language of widespread use. I think that's the the terminology that used. And that's a very important category for me, that I think is sometimes under represented in some of our discussions of Canonization, is that there was already a distribution of text. There was already a use of text in various places and then there were some conversations, you know, there, I'm going to forget the details. So I'm going to say this generally, you know, there's a conversation represented in the early literature about gospel Peter. And, you know, one of the bishop says, you know, we'd personally only use parts of it, but we know, others think that it's helpful and so, you know, be careful or something. Like that. Yeah so that's that's recognition that there's discussions again on the margins are on the boundaries and that does take place with some of our texts that are are canonized and it takes place with some text that ultimately aren't and so, but the core of the Canon, especially in the New Testament, was stable. And I don't, you know, I think I'd want to think more about what it means for them to say, like, we have Hebrew Bible, and now we need more or now, we need This because I think that that's that's one of the discussions that I'm still thinking through, you know, what does it look like for them to say our Jewish texts on enough or Terrazas not enough and we need this. But but on the whole I think that it has to do with the fact that they're like, we're using these texts and we want to have a list that helps others to guard against false teaching. So I hope that's remotely helpful Speaker 1 are Jed, found final thoughts, great. Oh man. That's a lot of pressure. Yeah, it's a jump back to what you said earlier. I think the for there to be a, I guess this is crass but crassly put, but for there to be a challenge to the status quo, there has to be a quote begin with, like there has to be something that is, is there. And so, I think Madison's your comment about a core Cannon or a core collection of whether that's teaching or a collection of That new testament writings. Or Apostolic writings that are being received as such, I think that's a important concept. So if you if you allow for a relatively stable, Hebrew scriptures, and a early core Cannon, or core collection of gospel, and epistle the gospels, and pole, that doesn't solve all of the issues, because it's still messy, but it's, it's not a Completely random uncontrollable mess. It's like when you walk into the house and say, well, this house is a mess, but that's really, really just need to pick up a few things where there's order in the within the messiness of the historical process. So if there's a core Cannon and a relatively stable, Hebrew scriptures, then the churches do have something that there. Able to use to adjudicate the boundaries of the fringes of the New Testament or just the nature of claims that people are making. And so and that's not instantaneous and so that's one of the reasons why you see this long process of thinking through. But I would say that that is the churches are thinking through what has been theirs, which has been their possession in the preaching of The Gospel, According to the scriptures from the, from the beginning, Whether you whether that's from the directly after the resurrection, or as you're thinking about the earliest churches as they're receiving, the writings of the New Testament alongside of the reading of the scriptures in their early, Gatherings are things like that. So I think the you see the connection between questions of authorship questions of composition, and questions of Cannon. Yeah, I think it's just, it's really fun to me. An interesting and some in some ways encourages my faith to read like Clementine first Clement, who I think most people agree, was written toward the end of the first century potentially, being written at the same time, that that John is running Revelation, perhaps, right? And he's already quoting all these Pauline Epistles. He's quoting gospels. He's already. I mean, you can't that the quote unquote. Yeah, Hebrews Like, the quote, unquote Cannon is not closed yet, and that Sense writer, it's not even, there's still questions and yet, I already like you guys are saying this core set of texts that Clements quoting, an ACS is quoting. I think he quotes almost every one of Paul's letters and Hebrews. By the time, his seven under relatively Undisputed letters are seeing. So to me, that's kind of encouraging. You know, I talked to students about this, you know, there's the stuff you see on YouTube about how the Christians that note the Bible was and, you know, Constantine invented Christianity, and what, you know, all that kind of stuff. I mean, even on Joe Rogan's podcasts, while back. I saw a clip going around where he was talking to the daughter of Fred Phelps, who founded the West? Errol quote-unquote Baptist, quote-unquote Church. And he was saying, well, we all know Constantine, wrote the New Testament like the 4th Century, right? So haha. It's like, no, actually we don't know that. That's that's that shows how little you know about what's actually happening, right? So that's always encouraging to me just to sort of point out the fact that the church did generally speaking know what their texts were and what they're teaching was and that that was how they were able to preserve it. Of course under the guidance of the spirit. So alright guys, well let's let's close their. Thank you guys for doing this. It was a fun conversation and I enjoyed listening to both you guys kind of work through that. So thanks for doing it. Speaker 2 Thanks Brandon going to be here. It's good to see Chad thanks Brandon.